Global Subprime: Markets Under Stress [Housing Tracker]

Seeking Alpha's Housing Tracker is a collection of housing-related excerpts from various sources, grouped by topic. Feel free to post any interesting links on the subject in the comments section below.

Global Subprime

Fed Statement On Coordinated Liquidity Provision. “The U.S. Federal Reserve on Friday expanded its foreign exchange swaps facilities with the European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank to pump billions of dollars of liquidity into the banking system to ease unprecedented strains in global money markets. The Fed said on its website that will increase its temporary swap facility with the ECB by $10 billion and extend its facility with the SNB by $3B.” (Reuters, Sept. 26)

Asian Markets Down As US Bailout Stalls. “Global banking giant HSBC [is] cutting 1,100 staff worldwide… Nomura Holdings will pay just a token two dollars for the Europe and Middle East operations of bankrupt Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers. The top Japanese broker will acquire only Lehman's employees in the regions, and not its stocks, bonds or other assets, the Nikkei business daily reported.” (Yahoo! Finance, Sept. 26)

Commercial-Property Players Find Their Pressures Growing. “Lehman pledged many of its real-estate assets as collateral on loans for desperately needed cash in the days before it collapsed. For example, Swedbank AB, a Swedish bank, was left holding 70 commercial loans valued at $1.35 billion, which were backed by properties including partially built developments. It is unclear if Swedbank will fund the balances to keep construction going.” (WSJ, Sept. 24)

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